


little stomach for the war

by gericault, theonlytwin



Series: i say it will rain on us again [2]
Category: Shichinin no Samurai | Seven Samurai (1954)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27428350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gericault/pseuds/gericault, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theonlytwin/pseuds/theonlytwin
Summary: At five Kyuzo sits on his mother's lap as she lets him pull a jade comb through her long, loose hair. The comb is inlaid with gold and fashioned in the shape of a blossoming tree branch. He prefers it to all of his toys.He has an older brother and two younger sisters, and he is smaller than the smallest one. His mother calls him her wolf cub and her little treasure. His father says, "If you keep spoiling that child so, he will not grow up to be a warrior."***At fifteen he is sheltering from the snow under a cheap rooming house roof, sharing the space with two other ronin, a day laborer and a family made homeless by an avalanche. It's been two years since he tore the clan crests off his kimono.
Relationships: Kyuzo/Katsushiro/Kikuchiyo
Series: i say it will rain on us again [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710973
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	little stomach for the war

At five Kyuzo sits on his mother's lap as she lets him pull a jade comb through her long, loose hair. The comb is inlaid with gold and fashioned in the shape of a blossoming tree branch. He prefers it to all of his toys.

He has an older brother and two younger sisters, and he is smaller than the smallest one. His mother calls him her wolf cub and her little treasure. His father says, "If you keep spoiling that child so, he will not grow up to be a warrior."

***

At fifteen he is sheltering from the snow under a cheap rooming house roof, sharing the space with two other ronin, a day laborer and a family made homeless by an avalanche. It's been two years since he tore the clan crests off his kimono.

The two ronin have struck up a friendship and are showing off their wealth, such as it is, to each other. "Remember the fall of Sakaki Castle? I fought on the Takeda side," the taller ronin says. "Picked this up from the ashes. Say -" He elbows his companion. "What's wrong with the kid over there?" They both stare at Kyuzo.

In his hand the ronin is holding a jade comb in the shape of a blossoming tree branch.

"He looks like that thing was carved out of one of his bones," the shorter ronin says. "You want it, don't you? Why?"

The answer he cannot give is: _that comb belonged to my mother. I am Sakaki Kyuzo, the last of my clan._

"I'll sell it to you for two hundred mon," the taller ronin says. Kyuzo has twenty.

"Duel me for it," he says.

The taller ronin snorts. "In this weather?"

"Are you afraid to lose?" Kyuzo says.

The taller ronin is quiet. The shorter one says, "What are you, eleven?"

"I am fifteen."

"And I'm the shogun," the taller one says. "Well, doesn't matter. Let's go."

Ten minutes later, the ronin is grimacing and rubbing the side of his neck where Kyuzo's bamboo pole struck him. He has the comb in his hand but he's not moving to relinquish it. His eyes are thoughtful.

"Yoshimune," he says. "Did you ever see the posters that went up in Kofu after the battle?"

"Hell, I don't know, it was two years ago."

"Lord Sakaki and the eldest son were killed. The lady and daughters took their own lives. But there was a boy whose corpse wasn't found. The poster said he was thirteen. And small for his age."

Comprehension dawns in the shorter ronin's eyes.

"Was there a reward?" he says.

"For the heir of a clan? A big one."

The two ronin draw.

A little less than ten minutes later, Kyuzo's shoulder is bleeding. The wound will heal with little attention from him, but he will have to stitch up the tear in his kimono. That is an annoyance. He is still too slow.

He searches the ronin, takes their money and his mother’s comb, and then with great difficulty hauls the corpses into the woods behind the rooming house, in hopes the children will not see them when the family leaves.

***

At eighteen he trades the comb for food.

***

At thirty he does not remember any of this. He has collected many scars. It does not matter.

***

At thirty-eight he is lying half undressed on a tatami mat in a small farmhouse, and the beautiful young man he loves places a gentle kiss on that old white line of knit flesh on his shoulder, and suddenly Kyuzo feels the smooth, cool weight of the jade in the palm of his hand again.

"Hey," says the other man he loves, the one who is wild and strong and fiercely handsome. He puts his hand to Kyuzo's cheek. "Where'd you go? Come back to us."

***

Now that Kyuzo can stand and walk, he wakes up at the first light of dawn to train outside the village. Unfortunately, Katsushiro now wakes up at that hour as well.

He prods Kikuchiyo's large, sprawled, sleeping form. "Wake up. Go with Kyuzo and make sure he doesn't overexert himself." Kikuchiyo stretches, clears his throat and sits up.

"I would like to train alone," Kyuzo says. "He leers. It is very distracting."

"Then I'll go," Katsushiro says.

"You are no better."

"We like to kiss you among the trees," Kikuchiyo says. "How can we help that? We're red-blooded men."

Kyuzo sighs. "Let me train for an hour before you come to molest me?"

"Twenty minutes," Katsushiro says, with a look as stern as his delicate features can manage.

"Thirty?"

"All right. But don't go far." He reaches for Kyuzo's hand. "Please?"

***

After thirty minutes Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo are both there in the grove, taking turns kissing him. He feels small, Kikuchiyo at his back and Katsushiro leaning over him, blocking the light. It's not a bad feeling.

When they arrived Katsushiro immediately chided him for working too hard. It's good to be kissed now, stroked by Katsushiro's tender, unpracticed hands, held in place by Kikuchiyo's overwhelming body, because it keeps his mind off the fact that Katsushiro was right. He was out of breath, shaky, could not have managed one more draw even if they hadn't come to stop him.

Kikuchiyo gropes his cock through his clothes, and Kyuzo makes the small, helpless sound he has been making for two weeks whenever they touch him like that. "I thought... you two were concerned... about me wearing _myself_ out, _ah..."_

"We'll carry you home," Kikuchiyo says, smirking.

***

They don't have to; but they walk slowly with him, giving him their arms when he needs support. It's a cool, clear morning. Two weeks have passed since Kikuchiyo first touched Kyuzo, but he still feels smugly proud every time he makes Kyuzo come. When he makes Kyuzo and Katsushiro both come, he wants to announce it to the village. (He announced it to Rikichi once, who rolled his eyes.)

As they come out of the forest, they see, over the houses, over the treetops, a long column of smoke. "A forest fire?" Katsushiro says.

Kikuchiyo scoffs. "In the wet season?"

"To the north, beyond the forest..." Kyuzo says quietly. "Nirayama Castle."

***

Slowly, inexorably, the smoke encroaches on the sky. There is a vagueness about everything, even the presence of Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo near him.

"Kambei told me a story," Katsushiro is saying, "about Shichiroji and a castle burning..."

Katsushiro's voice fades, as if Kyuzo is walking quickly away from him, though none of them are moving at all.

***

"They were separated when the siege was broken, and -"

Katsushiro breaks off. They're both looking at Kyuzo. Kyuzo is looking at the smoke. He's still and colorless as a stack of stones marking a grave. Kikuchiyo puts a hand on his shoulder.

Kyuzo whirls, makes a quick movement with his arm -

\- and collapses to the ground with a strangled cry.

Instantly, Katsushiro is at his side. Kyuzo flinches when Katsushiro touches him, and Katsushiro says, "Oh, oh, you're in pain, don't try to get up, are you bleeding? We're here, it'll be all right -"

Kikuchiyo does not think it was pain that made Kyuzo flinch.

He doesn't need to be carried, but he leans on them heavily as they go up the slope, and has to pause every few steps to take deep, gasping breaths. Once they have him laid on his mat, Katsushiro runs to fetch the midwife.

Kikuchiyo sits down, leaning against the wall, and tries to avoid looking at Kyuzo. He has a sense that Kyuzo does not want to be looked at -

And there's something unearthly about him right now, something strange and stark in his eyes, like a bloodstain on fresh white snow with no footprints there to explain it.

"Were you going to draw on me?" Kikuchiyo says.

Kyuzo makes a sound, and Kikuchiyo can't help glancing at him. His eyes are squeezed shut now, the lashes wet. "No. No, I - I would never -" He covers his own mouth for a moment. "I only reached for - for the hilt - to be ready. It was a reflex. I moved - too fast."

"Ready?" Kikuchiyo says.

Kyuzo turns his face away.

***

He lies down for the rest of the day, per the midwife's orders. In the late afternoon, clouds approach, a storm in the distance. The smoke disappears from the sky, that distant fire put out.

Katsushiro has been reciting poetry to Kyuzo, sitting with Kyuzo's head in his lap. It's not clear whether Kyuzo has heard him or not. "It'll rain on us soon," Kikuchiyo announces, coming in with rice and dried fish for dinner.

When it rains Katsushiro no longer panics, but he smiles less, talks less, is less himself. He avoids the town square and the fenced gap where he and Rikichi killed the bandit. He stays closer to Kikuchiyo and Kyuzo, keeps watch over them even more vigilantly. It seems to help that they can warn him; they both have the instinctive sense for the weather that animals do. He and Kyuzo match each other in many ways.

Being still and thinking is Kikuchiyo's least favorite way to pass time, but when he has absolutely nothing else to do, he sometimes thinks about that and why it might be.

Katsushiro stiffens now, and doesn't finish the poem Kikuchiyo interrupted when he came in.

Kyuzo moves - he's awake. He finds Katsushiro's hand, strokes the back of it with his fingertips. He looks up, eyes focused, into Katsushiro's face. Katsushiro inhales deeply, exhales, relaxes a little, twines their fingers together.

After dinner, things are good. Kyuzo's pain has eased and he's sitting upright. Katsushiro isn't trembling, even though the rain goes on. Kikuchiyo sits between them with his arms around them both.

"The thing you did with Katsushiro yesterday," Kyuzo says.

"You and I did many things with Katsushiro yesterday," Kikuchiyo says, grinning.

Kyuzo thinks. "When you had to cover his mouth because he was making so much noise." Katsushiro flushes deeply red. "And he fell asleep before I got back with the washcloth."

"Oh, _that."_ Kikuchiyo laughs. "It's called fucking, Kyuzo."

"Ah."

After a silence, Kikuchiyo says, "Would you like to do that?"

Kyuzo's cheeks color.

"Kyuzo, would you like me to fuck you?"

They have begun to get used to Kyuzo's odd way of asking for things. Kyuzo nods.

"Why him?" Katsushiro is pouting. "Kikuchiyo gets to do everything first with you, it's not fair."

"Because," Kikuchiyo says, grinning wider, "this -" He reaches over and squeezes Katsushiro's cock; Katsushiro squeaks - "is wonderfully big and you don't know how to use it. He would not have a good time."

"Oh," Katsushiro says, deflating.

"But you can fuck _me_ if you want."

"Oh!"

***

A few days later, as he watches them - fuck - no question remains in Kyuzo's mind that this is what he wants.

As ever, Kikuchiyo is chattering, almost babbling about how good Katsushiro’s cock is - the best he's ever had, he says - and then he shifts his body a little, or Katsushiro does, and there are no more words, only sweet wild sounds, Katsushiro's small cries and Kikuchiyo's moans.

An experience so overwhelming Kikuchiyo can no longer _speak_ \- Kyuzo wants that. He wants to feel and know nothing but what they do to him.

Kikuchiyo is on his hands and knees, Katsushiro behind him, and with one arm he pulls Kyuzo to him, kisses him hard, tugs roughly at his cock. Kyuzo opens for Kikuchiyo's tongue with a muffled noise and Kikuchiyo comes in Katsushiro’s hand. When he slumps down onto his elbows, panting, Katsushiro looks across the length of his body into Kyuzo's eyes and comes too with one sharp thrust.

"Ah," Kyuzo says, Kikuchiyo touching him lazily now, "you two..."

"Tomorrow?" Kikuchiyo says. And Kyuzo says, "Yes - yes -" as Kikuchiyo takes him into his mouth.

***

This morning, Katsushiro has allowed him forty-five minutes to train. It chafes Kyuzo a bit - he does not remember the last time he was bound by _rules_ such as these. Out of his irritation, he goes deeper into the woods than he has since Katsushiro started minding what he did.

The strain from his... reflex a few days ago bothers him little, but he's still slower and weaker than he was before he was shot. The pain of that wound asserts itself when he draws, though it no longer screams.

He cuts the air with his sword and his annoyance begins to fade; his thoughts begin to fade. The gentle quiet of the forest, and the sound of steel...

The sound of footsteps, and two men speaking. Have Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo come early, he thinks? No -

These are voices he does not know.

He stands still. He is wearing a dark green kimono that Katsushiro made a trip into town to buy, and his old beige hakama; his figure doesn't stand out among the trees, and he sees them before they notice him.

They have come from Nirayama. They are ragged from battle, bloody and carelessly bandaged, and they have the starved look in their eyes that is characteristic of warriors in retreat. "The beggar said left at the fork," one says to the other.

"He said right."

"Look, this path is well trodden. It must lead to a village. Go back if you want. I need to eat."

In their flight from battle, they have not lost their blades.

He steps into their path.

"The village at the end of this road is abandoned."

The samurai eye him. They are both larger than he is, as is typical. "I don't believe you," the more talkative one says. "These footprints are too fresh."

"They are mine."

The samurai scoffs. "All of them? No. Get out of our way. Nirayama was under siege for weeks. We're hungry."

"If there is a village," Kyuzo says, "and if they have any spare rice or millet, what will you pay for it?"

They stare at him. "Pay?" says the quieter one incredulously. "Pay _farmers?"_

"Well, then," Kyuzo says.

***

At thirteen he is very happy.

For eight months he has been studying at a dojo two days' ride from their castle. He has nothing more to learn from training with boys his age, so Master Iesada, his sensei, allows him to spar with the young men. They laughed, at first, at the small figure they faced; they do not laugh at him anymore.

He learns the sword, bow, spear, glaive. This is what he was meant for. His older brother speaks well, reads quickly, has a talent for diplomacy; someday he will be a fine leader of their clan. Kyuzo has none of those gifts. He is a fighter, and he is proud of himself. His father is proud of him.

On an autumn day, a samurai comes to the gate bearing a letter for Master Iesada. It must be of life-or-death importance, Kyuzo thinks, that the sender didn't trust an ordinary messenger to deliver it. His sensei opens the letter, reads it - evidently it is brief - and then goes to his private chamber. He does not come out for several hours. Kyuzo wanders up the mountainside a little ways and puts arrows into ever more distant trees.

At last his sensei finds him there. Something about Master Iesada's face unsettles him. "Is something wrong, sensei?"

"My boy," Master Iesada says. "My boy... you must return home now. You cannot tarry."

"Why, sensei?"

"I do not know. The matter was too sensitive to be shared with me. The letter said only that I must send you home as soon as I receive it."

"I have to leave - today?"

"Yes," Master Iesada says. "I am sorry. Please know... you are the best student I have ever had."

He puts his heavy hand on Kyuzo's shoulder. Kyuzo is still; his sensei has never touched him like this before. "I am sorry," Master Iesada says again.

***

Halfway home he's forced to kill his horse. A difficult mountain pass broke her leg. He weeps with grief - she has been his from her birth - and with worry; it will take him two extra days to get home on foot, and the matter is so urgent. What is it? Is his mother sick? She has had a weak constitution since his youngest sister was born. Will she die before he sees her again?

The sunset is strange as he finally reaches the mountainside beneath the castle. He walks up the winding trail, the sun sinks, the moon comes out, and the orange-redness of the sky does not go away. It seems to get brighter. Quick, rhythmless sounds crack the air. He was such an ignorant child, he'll think later, not to recognize gunfire, not to know what was happening.

He is thirteen, young, stupid. It's not till he's close enough to hear the horses and the shouts of men that he realizes. The castle is under attack -

No. It has fallen. It's burning.

***

Since the moment he awoke, Kikuchiyo has been thinking about what he will do to Kyuzo later in the day. He'll make it so good, he thinks. He'll hold himself back, be slow and gentle until Kyuzo asks for more, and then he'll fuck him till he's begging.

And afterwards Kyuzo will be loose-limbed and pliant and content, and the three of them will fall asleep together, and what happened the other day when they saw the column of smoke will never happen again. He'll never flinch from their touch again. His eyes will never be empty again.

As Kikuchiyo walks with Katsushiro into the forest, he rambles about Kyuzo: his surrendering eyes when he's about to come, how lovely he is are as he kneels and gazes up at them, how thick and long his petite hands make their cocks look. Katsushiro gets very red and tries to shush him. "But I'm right!"

"Of course you're right, but someone might hear!"

"You pretty idiot, do you think there's anyone who doesn't know -"

Katsushiro stops suddenly and grabs Kikuchiyo's arm. His fingers hurt. "Kikuchiyo!"

He tries to brush Katsushiro off. "Fine, fine, I'm sorry I called you an -"

Then Katsushiro is running, and Kikuchiyo looks forward and sees what he sees.

Ahead of them, much farther down the path than they expected Kyuzo to be, there are three men in the road. He can tell even from this distance that two of them are dead. The third is leaning against a tree, sword falling out of his hand, sinking down, trying to support himself on one arm, failing -

Kikuchiyo is faster than Katsushiro is. When Katsushiro reaches them, Kikuchiyo is gathering Kyuzo into his arms.

"Don't start crying!" Kikuchiyo says rapidly. "He's not going to die!" He's fighting off his own fear too, trying not to look at the blood soaking Kyuzo's kimono. The wound stripes from the top of his shoulder down to his collarbone - it's shallow, it will not kill him, this will not kill him.

***

In the morning, the inspection of the defeated dead.

All night he has been hiding in a tall tree. Samurai and soldiers passed back and forth below him - he could not scream; he could not sob. He cried silently and clung to a thick bough as if it were his mother.

She's brought out, just after dawn, from the castle's smoldering ruin, his sisters with her. There is so little left of her long hair. His father and brother are without their helmets. He wonders where their bodies are. He wonders where the enemy's laborers will dig the graves. Always two trenches, one for the bodies and one for the heads, after they're counted, and plaudits given out. Who won land and rank last night? Was it Takeda Shingen himself who cut down the patriarch of the Sakaki clan? Crows are calling, announcing the feast. Will some retainer bandage this wound on the earth with a new castle, or will the victorious clan ride away and leave the ground raw till it scars? There - there he is, the great warrior. Kyuzo knows him from the horned chimera that crests his helmet. He paces, flanked by his generals. He gestures toward the heads, his face knots in a frown, he is displeased. He gives orders. The generals assemble their men. They relay the commands. The men disperse. The sun climbs in the sky. The fog begins to dissolve, but not the smoke.

Kyuzo thinks: _they are searching for me._

He must return to the dojo. His father was an only child; he has no uncles or cousins to give him refuge. There is no one but Master Iesada who will protect him.

Master Iesada -

The unknown letter-writer's demand that Kyuzo come back to the castle immediately - the samurai messenger, who was not one of his father's retainers - his sensei's apology - his delay -

He understands then.

He cannot go back there. He cannot go home.

Two days later, he kills for the first time.

***

"Tell him," Kikuchiyo says, yanking the midwife's sleeve. "Tell him it's only a flesh wound."

"It's only a flesh wound," the midwife says wearily. "Most likely he won't even need stitches. It should close on its own."

"But he's barely conscious," Katsushiro wails.

"That has nothing to do with the injury. I'd say he just needs to sleep. He does little enough of it, we've all seen him walking around the village at night."

That jars Kikuchiyo. There was once - he remembers being awakened in the dark by Katsushiro saying, "Where've you been? I woke up and you were gone for so long and I was worried, I couldn't sleep," and Kyuzo apologizing in a small abashed voice. He'd thought it hadn't happened again.

“Help me bandage him,” the midwife says, “then let him rest.”

Kikuchiyo holds Kyuzo’s neck and head in his hands as she winds a strip of linen around his shoulder. Katsushiro is pressed to his back, watching. 

Kyuzo’s eyelids flicker. Kikuchiyo wonders what he sees. 

***

He has not slept in two days.

His stomach snarls, empty, and he drops into a tight crouch, terrified it will be heard. The sounds of the forest make him tremble. A bird’s call could be a voice, a rustle of leaves could be a kimono fluttering, a creaking branch could be heavy armor on a man in motion.

There - there, in the trees, there is movement, there are careful footsteps, a man, and he stops breathing, begs his heart to stop beating, waits, head cocked. His blade is in his hand. He knows the texture of it, the slightly uneven surface. He knows its weight. 

That is all he knows, but he knows it well.

The man closes in, and Kyuzo stands straight, slides his sword a hair out of the sheath. 

“Kyuzo?” the man whispers. 

_Yamada_ , he realises, and sags. Stout Yamada, jovial, uncomplaining Yamada, packhorse Yamada. Yamada, his father’s right hand.

“Kyuzo?” He reaches slowly out to Kyuzo, as though he were a frightened animal. “Are you well? I have water - food.”

Yamada used to be the one to hand his father a water skin. Now he extends one to Kyuzo.

One hand still on his sword, Kyuzo takes the water, drinks deep. 

Yamada unslings a bag, holds out a small sweet potato, ash still clinging to the skin. 

Kyuzo puts it whole into his mouth.

“Your family died well,” Yamada says.

Kyuzo swallows, feels the grit on his tongue. 

“Your father, your brother fought fiercely. When we knew the battle was lost, your honored mother and sisters went with courage to the next world. I hoped I would find you, to tell you that.”

Kyuzo nods silently. Of course they died well; how could they do otherwise? They are - were - samurai.

“Sit, sit,” says Yamada, gesturing to the ground. “Rest. How did you come to be here?”

“My horse fell,” he says, and folds to his knees, drinks more water. 

“She was a fine beast,” Yamada nods.

Kyuzo feels the tears rise again, fights them. He would not shame himself in front of Yamada.

“I will find you another,” he continues. “Stronger. You will ride far from here.”

Kyuzo, for the first time in days, tries to imagine the future. 

He cannot.

Suddenly Yamada rises and his voice shrinks to a whisper. “Did you hear that? From the east.” Kyuzo stands as well, and Yamada nudges him forward. “Look - is someone there? Your eyes are sharper than mine.” Kyuzo looks - he sees nothing but trees.

Then, he feels a... change, as if a ghost has walked through him.

He turns back toward Yamada, and is cut open.

***

Katsushiro is crying again, silently, laid out alongside Kyuzo, staring at him as though the pressure of his gaze will wake him. 

Kikuchiyo sits on the other side of Kyuzo, watching them both, though it’s awful to see.

He’s always hated seeing people cry. To see their defenses collapse, from fear or grief, leaving behind the creased, messy face of a scared child - it’s bad. 

Seeing the stupid beautiful boy who loves him, who he loves, against his will, seeing this boy cry is worse. 

“He’ll be fine,” Kikuchiyo says. 

Katsushiro doesn’t move, doesn’t make a noise. 

“He’ll wake up, he’ll heal. He did before, and that was a proper wound.”

This makes Katsushiro look up at him, a little crease between his brows. 

"Look at all those scars he's got. All those fights and he's still alive. I don't think anything can kill him."

Katsushiro shivers. 

“Are you cold?” Kikuchiyo reaches for a blanket. “He’s probably cold too.”

“How - how can you say that?”

“That you’re… cold?”

Katsushiro pushes himself up, folds his arms. “All those scars - all those fights - that’s not _good,”_ he hisses. 

Kikuchiyo blinks. “He’s survived, though. He’ll survive this.”

“That’s not - that’s not enough!” He’s getting louder, and Kyuzo stirs. 

Kikuchiyo flaps a hand at Katsushiro, curves closer to Kyuzo, strokes a thumb over his cheek. His skin is cool, dry, scarred, and Kikuchiyo loves him. 

“Hey, idiot. Wake up.”

***

Yamada's shortsword has sliced deeply into Kyuzo's brow above his right eye. If it were less sharp it would have lodged in the bone.

He is too shocked to feel pain, or to run. He only darts back a few steps and stares at his blood on Yamada's blade.

"I don't wish to make you suffer," Yamada says. His face is gray.

Kyuzo realizes: this man tried to slit his throat.

"Yamada?" he says.

"Please understand..." Yamada is sheathing his shortsword. "Takeda Shingen is offering a large tract of good land for proof of your death."

"Yamada," Kyuzo says again. He cannot believe it.

As he draws his katana, Yamada says, "If you kneel and close your eyes, this will be over very quickly."

Kyuzo's hands and feet feel cold, his chest hot. He tries to speak; his mouth resists. Blood runs down his face. Yamada stands still, lips in a tight line, waiting.

"This is dishonorable," Kyuzo forces out. "You are my father's man." _You are my man,_ he should say, but it is too much.

"I fled from the castle. What honor do I have left? To deliver your head to Takeda is all that will salvage my life."

He could die, as his family has died. His head will be separated from his body and presented as proof while his body rots, unknown, unmourned, meaningless.

He draws his sword.

Yamada was never a master swordsman. He is a good poet, a conversationalist, a strong man and excellent rider, but merely competent with a blade.

Kyuzo has beaten everyone he has fought for months. 

There is no sound, no call of a bird, no flowing water, no brush of wind through the trees, as if the world is a corpse, and the two of them not men but worms crawling in it.

Yamada lunges. His stroke leans to the left - Kyuzo shifts right. 

Two years ago, Yamada was thrown by his horse, breaking his left ankle. He has to turn quickly on that leg to block Kyuzo’s stroke, and cannot.

Kyuzo’s blade splits Yamada’s chest as though the steel was tempered only for this, to end this life, in this place.

Now, a sound - bubbling, as Yamada attempts to draw breath. Kyuzo withdraws his sword and the man crumples. Within a moment, he is gone.

Looking down at Yamada's body, Kyuzo feels - nothing.

How can he hate this man who chose not to die with his liege lord? Kyuzo should have died with his family, and did not. Yamada was afraid to die. Kyuzo is afraid to die.

With a strip torn from Yamada's kimono, he binds his wound. He takes the bag of sweet potatoes. Yamada had given him the smallest. 

Two hours later, his blood has soaked through the bandage and is running down the curve of his eye socket again, and he's forced to return to Yamada's body for more cloth. He sleeps in a cave that night; he wakes before dawn and the gash still has not scabbed over. He must treat it before it gets dirty, and festers, and kills him. He is afraid to die.

He knows there is a village near, he knows where the tailor lives - he had ridden through it with his family, watched his father purchase clothes. 

There’s no reason they’d be awake yet. 

Kyuzo moves silently, head empty of thoughts, bones hollow. He wonders perhaps if he has already died and he is haunting this place. He slips into the house, and hears the sleeping breaths of the tailor’s family. They live. He lives. For a moment he imagines he can lie with them, sleep with this family whose faces he barely remembers. He imagines nothing past this image - safe between their bodies.

He takes a needle and thread and returns to the cave. 

There is a pool of still water that he uses to guide his hand as he sews his face shut. 

At thirty-eight, when he is no longer afraid to die, when it no longer matters at all, he watches a young girl use her reflection in a rain puddle to comb her hair, and he remembers this. And then Katsushiro, who he barely knows, comes splashing along the path to meet the girl and be kind to her, and Kyuzo looks at him and does not think of the past for a while.

***

Kyuzo wakes slowly, which is unlike him. Kikuchiyo keeps a hand on his face, watching his long lashes flutter. 

He looks up at each of them, asks, “They're dead?”

Kikuchiyo bends down to press their foreheads together. “Of course they are.”

“You’re hurt,” Katsushiro says, bitterly. 

“It’s a flesh wound,” Kikuchiyo tells him, sitting up. 

Kyuzo touches his fingers to the bandage. “It seemed shallow?”

“It is,” says Kikuchiyo, and helps him to sit as well. 

“You should have _waited,”_ Katsushiro snaps. 

They both look at him. Katsushiro is furious. Kikuchiyo has never seen him so angry, even when Kyuzo was shot and wouldn't wake up and Kikuchiyo goaded Katsushiro endlessly because it was better to annoy him than to watch him cry.

"You knew we were coming! Why didn't you wait?" He didn't know Katsushiro's light, soft voice could get as loud as it is now.

"They were a danger to the village. You'd have had me let them pass?" Kyuzo has sharpened, as he was when he commanded a squad of men.

“Better than you fight two men at once with no support, no one around! We would have met them, we could have fought them! We were on our way!”

"And what if something waylaid you, and they'd met someone else first? One of the women or girls?"

He can see that Katsushiro doesn't have a good answer for that.

They have not argued before, the two of them, though Kikuchiyo argues with them both regularly. They don’t know what they’re doing.

***

Kyuzo is disoriented, unmoored - the past comes upon him like a summer storm, he is bleeding again, Kikuchiyo sits silently by him as Katsushiro fumes. 

“You were alone,” Katsushiro says, as though this is unbearable.

"Three weeks ago I killed two bandits, alone, and you told me I was magnificent."

"That was different!"

"Why is it different?"

"Because - because - you're weaker now, and -"

There is no denying it, but Kyuzo feels as though he has been slapped in the face.

"- and - Kyuzo, you can't do these reckless things anymore!" Katsushiro cries out. "It's different because we love you!"

Suddenly it's as if he's fallen through the surface of a frozen river.

Cold, so cold, nothing to stand on, and no air to breathe.

A lifetime presents itself before him. Years. Decades. In time, everything will come back. He will remember every man that he killed. Every sword that cut every scar. The years when he was young, when he was terrified, when he fought to stay alive, before it ceased to matter.

The defenses will fall, the castle will burn, and he will be trapped in the flames, immolated but never consumed, never set free.

It is a _terrible_ thing to be loved.

"Stop shouting at him," Kikuchiyo says, quietly.

Kyuzo is jolted - shocked. So is Katsushiro. Things never get quieter where Kikuchiyo is. 

"Katsushiro," he says. "You and I are going for a walk." He turns the force of his eyes on Kyuzo. "Stay put, or I'll get angry at you too."

Kyuzo nods, relieved to be given a clear instruction, a clear goal.

***

Kikuchiyo is thinking:

***

The first night he spends in the straw next to Rikichi, he sleeps poorly. It itches, and though he prefers Rikichi's company to the samurai at the moment, he does not like the smell of Rikichi's body compared to theirs - a farmer smell, an earth smell. Kikuchiyo likes to think he doesn't smell like that anymore; he wants to sweat like a man who fights, not a man who toils.

Also, as soon as he reached the village and exhausted his small private supply, he remembered why he'd never liked to fall asleep sober.

He has bad dreams that night. It's so childish to wake from a nightmare and not be able to sleep again. Stupid to lie there in the dark sweating as though one's own mind is a too-hot blanket. Real men aren't frightened by dreams.

He elbows Rikichi, who is snoring. Rikichi smells like a farmer but he is very handsome; more than once Kikuchiyo has thought idly about sucking his cock. But he rolls over with a grunt and his snoring continues.

He gets to his feet, picks straw from his thighs. He walks out of the barn, no thoughts in his head. He heads for the edge of town.

Dark, straight, still, like the last small pillar of a demolished house, Kyuzo is standing there, hand on his sword. At his feet on the ground is the spear Shichiroji threw, when he raged at the farmers, before Kikuchiyo raged at the samurai.

If not sake, if not sex, perhaps a fight will help Kikuchiyo go back to sleep. He squares up and fixes Kyuzo with a hard glare. But he has no weapon and Kyuzo is armed - he is always armed. Kikuchiyo could try for the spear, but he knows how fast Kyuzo can move.

Kyuzo does not look up. Kikuchiyo scuffs a foot on the ground noisily. He wants him to look up. He wants to force Kyuzo to reckon with him. Kyuzo does not look up.

"You," Kikuchiyo says. Kyuzo does nothing. He kicks dirt in Kyuzo's direction - he's getting angry - it's a relief to be angry. "Hey," he says. "Asshole. You make a shitty watchman, staring at the ground."

Now Kyuzo looks at him - looks through him. His eyes are like two open graves.

Kikuchiyo shivers. But he's not scared of anything or anyone. He stares into the empty black eyes. For a few seconds, they come into focus.

Then, at the same moment, Kikuchiyo and Kyuzo look away from each other, up at the stars.

There's something about Kyuzo that he understands, that night. He doesn't know what it is. He doesn't want to know what it is, he says to himself, after.

***

"You aren't angry at him?" Katsushiro says shrilly when they're barely out the door.

Kikuchiyo scoffs. “What for? Being himself?”

“He’s - he acts as if his life doesn’t matter! Like his happiness is - nothing!” His eyes are wild, furious. His face is wet, but he’s not crying now. 

“You want him safe?”

“Yes!”

“You would do anything to keep him safe?”

“Of course!”

“Would you make your body a weapon for his protection? Would you patrol the borders of our home at all hours, so that no one might attack? Would you kill anyone who threatened him?”

Katsushiro makes an aggrieved noise. “Yes - yes! Anything.”

“But you don’t want him to do any of that for you? Strange.”

Kikuchiyo watches him slowly deflate. “It’s - it’s not the same. He’s hurt.”

“You think that’s enough to convince him? He was shot and kept moving. He can’t stop moving. He’s too scared to stop.”

“But - we’ll help. We’ll protect him. Fight by him.”

Katsushiro has stopped walking, and Kikuchiyo begins to stride back and forth in front of him. 

“We can tell him that. But making him understand? Not in his head, but in his body? Make him realise it in the moment before he draws his sword? Because he’s very quick to draw. He’s had to be. He’s been alone a long time. He has to be on guard all the time. He’s not used to trusting anyone to be by him, to not betray him. He’s never been in one place long enough for friends, let alone lovers. He’s terrified of failing you, the village, losing this.”

“How do you know that?” Katsushiro asks, desperate.

Kikuchiyo almost laughs.

***

Katsushiro goes back to the house at a near-run, ready to apologise, to beg forgiveness. Kikuchiyo is close behind, his long legs keeping pace. 

Kyuzo is sitting up, testing how far he can raise his arm.

“Oh, please rest,” Katsushiro says, forgetting his grand expression of regret. 

“It is a minor wound - you don’t need to worry.”

“Don’t we?” Kikuchiyo asks, arch. He throws himself down beside Kyuzo, sits under his sword arm. 

“I should have done better,” Kyuzo says, almost to himself. 

“You were shot,” Katsushiro tells him, “you are still recovering, that you killed them alone is remarkable.”

“They were tired, and not skilled. Once I would have overcome them in two strokes,” Kyuzo says, with an unsettling disinterest in his voice. “Their blades would never have touched me, before. No blade has touched me since I was twenty-one.”

Katsushiro's heart is stricken with a chill.

Kyuzo is looking at him, flat-eyed. It is as if he can see Katsushiro doing the brutal math in his head. "Then - then all those scars -"

Kyuzo nods.

"You were younger than me."

Kyuzo nods.

"You were a _child."_

"Some children grow up faster than others," Kikuchiyo says, quietly, and Katsushiro crumples to the floor, and starts to cry.

"I'm sorry," he says, the words liquid with tears. "I've been so stupid. I haven't understood. I don't know anything of the world. Kyuzo, I'm so sorry."

"No," Kyuzo says, too lightly. "You were right. I am weaker now." He's seen sense, then; but Katsushiro doesn't feel any relief. Kikuchiyo has been holding Kyuzo's hand, and he looks up, surprised, when Kyuzo extricates himself and stands.

Katsushiro stares up as Kyuzo takes a few lurching steps toward the door, and his sword, lying against the wall next to it.

Something is happening that Katsushiro does not understand. He was not even born yet when Kyuzo got his first scar. The distance between them is unbearable. He cannot reach the boy that Kyuzo was, or the man he is now.

Helplessly, he looks to Kikuchiyo -

Kikuchiyo launches himself, like a cat, snatches Kyuzo’s sword, bolts into the corner of their house.

“No!” He shakes his head, clutching the sword to his chest. “You’re not leaving, idiot!”

Kyuzo’s forehead creases, and he sways, uncertain. His fingers twitch. Katsushiro can almost see it - the invisible tendon that connects Kyuzo to his sword - strained horribly, about to tear.

“I don’t - deserve the blade…” Kyuzo says, at last, and takes another step toward the door.

Katsushiro staggers forward on his knees, wraps his arms around Kyuzo’s legs. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “The blade doesn’t matter, you matter.”

He looks up and can see Kyuzo shake his head. “Why am I here?”

“Because we want you here!” Kikuchiyo drops the sword, strides forward, grabs his shoulder. Katsushiro seizes Kyuzo's hand and holds it, hard.

Their touch does not seem to ease Kyuzo at all. It's not even clear that he heard Kikuchiyo speak. He says again, "Why am I here?"

"Because we love you," Katsushiro says raggedly and stands up, throwing his arms tightly around Kyuzo, who gasps and struggles as if he will run away, but Kikuchiyo is still blocking him. Kyuzo's body feels small, brittle, about to crumble in Katsushiro's arms. His eyes are huge, childlike. He looks panicked - he has never looked panicked.

"Why?" Kyuzo's chest heaves. “Katsushiro - that day in town, that duel - because I killed that stupid man, you saw me, Katsushiro. I’m twice your age, mutilated, ugly -” Katsushiro and Kikuchiyo both start to protest but Kyuzo is talking too quickly to be interrupted. “Would you ever have looked at me if you hadn’t seen how I could kill? That is what I am to both of you, that is what I have always been. What is left now, if I am no longer strong, if I’m never so strong again? What use am I?” His voice is raw, an open wound and Katsushiro is crying again. _“Why am I here?"_

"To hold Katsushiro when it rains," Kikuchiyo says, shaking him, a little. “To be gentle with him. You are gentle when I’m not.” 

“To make Kikuchiyo laugh,” Katsushiro says. “To understand him. That day - that night, in town, do you remember? You knew what he was going to do before he did it. You _knew._ Please remember.”

“He loves you,” Kikuchiyo says, putting his broad, worn hands to either side of Kyuzo’s head, forcing their eyes to meet. “I love you.”

Katsushiro’s breath, already broken with sobs, stops. Of course, of course he has known for weeks. But Kikuchiyo has never said the words before.

Kyuzo shakes his head again, blinks, slowly, and gradually, gracefully, gives up.

***

They lay together, breathing each other in a while.

“I was wondering,” Katsushiro says, hesitantly, sweetly, “Kyuzo… is that… your real name?”

Kikuchiyo cocks his head, frowns. He doesn’t understand. Names mean nothing to him. He took on his name as he dons clothes. 

Kyuzo nods. 

Katsushiro presses on, “Would you tell us the rest? Your family name?” Then, at Kyuzo’s silence, more hesitantly, “Do you... remember it?”

He cannot tell them, it is not safe, if his name becomes known he will die, he is afraid to die.

Kikuchiyo presses his closed mouth to Kyuzo’s arm. Katsushiro’s skin is warm, his eyes luminous.

He swallows. 

“Sakaki,” he tells them.

"Sakaki Kyuzo," Katsushiro says, with infinite tenderness. "That's very pretty."

For years he never thought of his name at all - certainly not that it was pretty - he did not think of himself as anything but a weapon, he desired no one and believed he was impossible to desire, and it did not matter, but now they insist - they say these words that mystify him, _pretty_ and _handsome_ and _beautiful,_ dangerous words that make him want to curl up in the circle of their arms.

Katsushiro kisses him, and then Kikuchiyo, and then they kiss each other. They kiss his cheeks, his lips, his brow, his scar -

Kyuzo flinches.

“You’re here,” Kikuchiyo says. “All that - the scars - brought you here. Stay here.”

He is full of memory, brimming with pain, can feel the pull of the needle in the stretched skin above his eye. He shivers, clings to them, digging his fingers into Kikuchiyo’s ribs, catching Katsushiro’s arm.

“You were - going to,” he closes his eyes, opens them, tries to focus his voice, his thoughts. “You were going to fuck me.”

Kikuchiyo freezes. 

“You’re… injured,” Katsushiro breathes. 

Kyuzo turns his head, tries to face Kikuchiyo, who has still not moved. “Fuck me.”

Kikuchiyo runs a large, hot hand down his side. 

***

_"Don't hurt him,"_ Katsushiro says.

Kikuchiyo opens his mouth but before he can speak Kyuzo says, "He won't." He has to shut his eyes for a second. This from Kyuzo, who's so like him - who can't trust easily - it's overwhelming.

Kyuzo is on his back, spread out, the best position they could find to keep from straining his wounds. His face and chest are prettily reddened from the rub of Kikuchiyo's beard. Kikuchiyo runs his hand down Kyuzo's belly, feeling the scars he hates and loves.

They have been readying Kyuzo for a long time, Kikuchiyo opening him first and then Katsushiro laying his hand on top of Kikuchiyo's, to slide a finger into Kyuzo's body too, the two of them working together, smiling at Kyuzo and at each other. Katsushiro's so eager, never satisfied just to observe, always hungry to participate. Whatever they do, he wants to be with them.

At first Kyuzo was quieter than normal, not making the soft, delicate sounds for them that he always has before, and they kept asking, _do you still want this,_ and he kept answering _yes, yes, yes._

Now they don't have to ask. His whimper when they withdraw and leave him empty again tells the story.

But Kikuchiyo loves hearing it, so he says, "Yes?" one more time as he rubs his cock slickly between Kyuzo's thighs.

"Please," Kyuzo says.

***

So little of Kikuchiyo's cock is in him, and yet it feels huge, filling him in a way he can barely comprehend.

"You have to tell us if it's too much," Katsushiro says. "You _have_ to." Kyuzo nods, and Katsushiro grabs his hand tightly and says, "Do you _promise?"_

He nods again, and Kikuchiyo takes his other hand. "Grip tight when you want more, let go and I'll stop." Kikuchiyo's hands are so large - everything about him is large. His presence, his body.

Kyuzo takes a deep breath, squeezes his hand, and Kikuchiyo presses forward, and Kyuzo winces.

Katsushiro says, "Kikuchiyo -" but Kikuchiyo's already gone still.

Kyuzo's biting hard into his lip. He closes his eyes and says, "I - I may not be able to -"

"Then we won't do this," Katsushiro says tenderly. "It's all right."

"No - I want to try." He wants this, he wants everything they have, everything.

He tightens his grip on Kikuchiyo's hand again, and holds on as long as he can as Kikuchiyo eases forward, arms trembling and teeth clenched. He groans. "Damn - _damn,_ you feel good, Kyuzo."

Kyuzo shivers, opens his eyes, looks at Katsushiro. "Ahh - would you..." He can't quite say it.

But they know him so well. Katsushiro wraps his lovely fingers around Kyuzo's shaft, says, "Yes?" and Kyuzo squirms between his hand and Kikuchiyo's cock.

This fullness, and being touched - it's strange, new - he is more defenseless than he's ever been - safer than he's ever been.

"More oil," Kikuchiyo says from behind gritted teeth, and Katsushiro fumbles for the bottle with shaking hands, makes a mess pouring it over Kikuchiyo's shaft as he pulls out. Then - in - again - Kyuzo feels as if Kikuchiyo will push the very breath out of him. Is this how it is for Kikuchiyo and Katsushiro, when they do this to each other? It is a vulnerability he could never have imagined. It is terrifying, in its way. But he thinks of his years without this, without them, and wants to cry.

"We’re with you," Katsushiro whispers, lying down beside him, fingers around his cock again. "Please, please, stay with us," and Kyuzo nods, farther from speech with each flex of Kikuchiyo's hips. He reaches for Kikuchiyo's wrist and holds it tightly, shocked by the build of his own helpless noises as Kikuchiyo withdraws further, thrusts back in faster, deeper.

"You're - fuck - you're so good - so tight - so pretty -" Kikuchiyo says raggedly, putting his free hand under Kyuzo's knee and pushing it down towards his chest, making Kikuchiyo's cock feel, unbelievably, thicker and harder and more forceful in him. 

Between Kikuchiyo and Katsushiro, he perceives nothing, knows nothing except being taken and being touched.

Katsushiro is whispering to him still, and Kikuchiyo is moaning, brown skin flushed, shining with sweat. He fucks Kyuzo hard and Katsushiro kisses him tenderly. He is shaking. They possess him completely now and he would say _more, more, more_ if he could.

The most he can take, finally, is Kikuchiyo growling, "I'm going to come, going to give you my come" - 

He breaks, then, with a cry, and a grip on Kikuchiyo's forearm that will bruise, and long pulses into Katsushiro's hand, and Kikuchiyo is coming too with a wild thrust, and Katsushiro is telling him they love him.

***

Katsushiro doesn't need to order Kikuchiyo to be careful as he eases out; he is gentler than Katsushiro would ever have thought he could be. Kyuzo's large eyes are closed, his lips parted, chest shining with his own spend. He is terribly pretty like this, just like Kikuchiyo said, and he looks younger in a way that wrenches Katsushiro’s heart.

He kisses Kyuzo again, and Kyuzo’s lips move beneath his. “Yes,” Katsushiro says; in response to what question, he doesn’t know. Kikuchiyo’s hair tickles his arm as he leans in, to lap at Kyuzo’s chest. Kyuzo shivers and makes one more soft, sweet sound into Katsushiro’s mouth.

Kyuzo is a gift, Katsushiro thinks. Kikuchiyo pulls him in for a kiss, Kyuzo’s come on his tongue, and he thinks: Kikuchiyo is a gift too. As he has many times before, Katsushiro resolves to be worthy of them, to live honorably and be the man they deserve.

He will do anything for them. He will go to war against Kyuzo’s past, if Kyuzo will only allow it. 

“Will you stay?” he asks. 

He means - here, in the village, their village - and - much more than that.

***

“Will you stay?” Katsushiro asks.

Kikuchiyo trails his fingers down Kyuzo’s slick chest. “We want you to stay,” he says.

“We love you,” Katsushiro tells him, mouth wet and warm against his skin. 

He is - cracked, now. Or was it that the rupture came a long time ago, and the mud he used to seal it has turned to dust? Inevitably, there will be a time when he shatters. Yet -

Kikuchiyo snores, is very strong and full of laughter. Katsushiro talks sometimes, unintelligibly, in his sleep, and smells of flowers. If he were still sealed to such things, he would not remember a castle on fire, or Yamada, or his mother's jade comb. He would be free from what is past, what is gone. From loss, from fear.

He loves them. If he had never loved them, he would be traveling on his own still, telling no one his name, resting nowhere for more than one night. Perhaps he would be dead already.

“I will stay,” Kyuzo murmurs. 

“Because you love us?” Kikuchiyo prods.

Snow, ash, still water, the blood of a horse, rough tree bark beneath his cheek.

Katsushiro slaps Kikuchiyo’s arm, and Kikuchiyo sticks out his tongue.

“Because I love you,” Kyuzo agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> title from a convo between patroclus and achilles in shakespeare's troilus and cressida, for that intertextual gay warrior romance vibe


End file.
